Love it or hate it? “banquette” seating has been around a long time and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. I have been researching it for a restaurant project I am working on and while doing so have come across some really beautiful examples in everyday homes.

I am quite partial to this style of seating, in fact I have an old timber Queen Anne cabriole style leg table teamed with a long  banquette style ottoman at home, a pair of transparent Pedrali Queen chairs standing at the ends and some galvanised industrial tolic stools scattered opposite the ottoman- it works for me and gives me 3 different styles of seating (leisurely lounging, formal dining and casual perching)  all at the same time which I think is what attracts me to this style the most.

The rooms featured above all seem to have either a homely seaside or country feel to them and I wonder if that is integral to making banquette style seating work in a house so that it avoids  feeling “diner booth”  cheap and tacky or on the flip side  to having an overly stiff formal restaurant air about it.